Part 2 (1/2)

”Pretty good,” said Johnson. ”I wish I'd said that.”

”Well, tell Boswell,” said Shakespeare. ”He'll make you say it, and it'll be all the same in a hundred years.”

Lord Bacon, accompanied by Charon and the ice for Nero and the ale for Doctor Johnson, appeared as Shakespeare spoke. The philosopher bowed stiffly at Doctor Johnson, as though he hardly approved of him, extended his left hand to Shakespeare, and stared coldly at Nero.

”Did you send for me, William?” he asked, languidly.

”I did,” said Shakespeare. ”I sent for you because this imperial violinist here says that you wrote _Oth.e.l.lo_.”

”What nonsense,” said Bacon. ”The only plays of yours I wrote were _Ham_--”

”s.h.!.+” said Shakespeare, shaking his head madly. ”Hush. n.o.body's said anything about that. This is purely a discussion of _Oth.e.l.lo_.”

”The fiddling ex-Emperor Nero,” said Bacon, loudly enough to be heard all about the room, ”is mistaken when he attributes _Oth.e.l.lo_ to me.”

”Aha, Master Nero!” cried Shakespeare triumphantly. ”What did I tell you?”

”Then I erred, that is all,” said Nero. ”And I apologize. But really, my Lord,” he added, addressing Bacon, ”I fancied I detected your fine Italian hand in that.”

”No. I had nothing to do with the _Oth.e.l.lo_,” said Bacon. ”I never really knew who wrote it.”

”Never mind about that,” whispered Shakespeare. ”You've said enough.”

”That's good too,” said Nero, with a chuckle. ”Shakespeare here claims it as his own.”

Bacon smiled and nodded approvingly at the blus.h.i.+ng Avonian.

”Will always was having his little joke,” he said. ”Eh, Will? How we fooled 'em on _Hamlet_, eh, my boy? Ha-ha-ha! It was the greatest joke of the century.”

”Well, the laugh is on you,” said Doctor Johnson. ”If you wrote _Hamlet_ and didn't have the sense to acknowledge it, you present to my mind a closer resemblance to Simple Simon than to Socrates. For my part, I don't believe you did write it, and I do believe that Shakespeare did. I can tell that by the spelling in the original edition.”

”Shakespeare was my stenographer, gentlemen,” said Lord Bacon. ”If you want to know the whole truth, he did write _Hamlet_, literally. But it was at my dictation.”

”I deny it,” said Shakespeare. ”I admit you gave me a suggestion now and then so as to keep it dull and heavy in spots, so that it would seem more like a real tragedy than a comedy punctuated with deaths, but beyond that you had nothing to do with it.”

”I side with Shakespeare,” put in Emerson. ”I've seen his autographs, and no sane person would employ a man who wrote such a villanously bad hand as an amanuensis. It's no use, Bacon, we know a thing or two. I'm a New-Englander, I am.”

”Well,” said Bacon, shrugging his shoulders as though the results of the controversy were immaterial to him, ”have it so if you please. There isn't any money in Shakespeare these days, so what's the use of quarrelling? I wrote _Hamlet_, and Shakespeare knows it. Others know it. Ah, here comes Sir Walter Raleigh. We'll leave it to him. He was cognizant of the whole affair.”

”I leave it to n.o.body,” said Shakespeare, sulkily.

”What's the trouble?” asked Raleigh, sauntering up and taking a chair under the cue-rack. ”Talking politics?”

”Not we,” said Bacon. ”It's the old question about the authors.h.i.+p of _Hamlet_. Will, as usual, claims it for himself. He'll be saying he wrote Genesis next.”

”Well, what if he does?” laughed Raleigh. ”We all know Will and his droll ways.”

”No doubt,” put in Nero. ”But the question of _Hamlet_ always excites him so that we'd like to have it settled once and for all as to who wrote it. Bacon says you know.”

”I do,” said Raleigh.